Page 3820 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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by the minister, and the Assembly resolved to continually update and modify standard operating procedures to minimise grass clippings from entering stormwater drains and waterways.
We need to adopt a water quality improvement strategy to address reducing pollutants based around treating the actual polluted flows rather than just building assets in convenient locations. Clearly, the government has not done a great job in this regard, given my questioning in March and Mr Davis’s motion today. We could say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So thanks, Mr Davis, for resurrecting my motion from November last year. I do find it a little strange, as Mr Davis is a member of the government that is not doing what the motion called on them to do a year ago and that seems to have failed to take much action, if any, in this area. That is particularly disappointing when you acknowledge the role of environmental volunteers, who are always working to improve the water quality in our lakes and to undertake water quality monitoring, such as through Waterwatch.
We have other initiatives, partly funded by the government or perhaps even wholly funded by the government, such as the Leaf Collective, which this motion acknowledges that the government has supported. Yet the government appear to fail to change their own maintenance practices that negatively impact our waterways and directly counter the work of organisations like the Leaf Collective.
I have said this before and I will say it again: I do not believe it is good enough to go around announcing new water quality infrastructure assets, with much fanfare and pats on the back and with lots of government members attending, at the same time that other areas of government are having a directly negative impact on the health of our lakes and waterways. We can have great photo opportunities announcing new infrastructure assets and, just a couple of kilometres down the road, a mower spreading its clippings directly into Lake Tuggeranong.
In addition, our water quality treatment needs to be designed for rain events, not just base flow. Rain events contribute in the order of five times the annual load of pollutants compared to base flows. That is why it is important to maintain the assets that we build. I have mentioned this over the years to relevant ministers, and in the recent annual report hearings I raised with Minister Rattenbury that the floating wetlands were once again damaged and spreading debris throughout the lake, and I wanted to ask questions about the maintenance of water quality assets such as this. Minister Rattenbury at the time told me that the responsibility for the maintenance of these wetlands fell under Minister Steel. So at a later hearing I raised it with Minister Steel, who appeared to be very confused and felt that this was not his responsibility.
So no-one can tell us who is responsible for maintaining these water quality assets, such as floating wetlands. It is claimed that they are improving the water quality, but they are falling apart. If you had been down that end of the lake recently you would have seen that they have broken apart. Some have come loose of their moorings. Some parts of them have turned upside down so that the plants, whose roots were meant to be under the water helping to remove nutrients, were now underwater, contributing to the problem.
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